


Never Last, Never First

by reserve



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Complicated Power Dynamics, Felching, First Time, Francis Crozier Fucks but Emotionally He’s an Incel, Implied But Not Actual Dubious Consent, James Fitzjames is a Good Actor, M/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Rimming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:00:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24167734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reserve/pseuds/reserve
Summary: First Lieutenant Francis Crozier’s time on theSt. Vincentis more interesting than he expects.
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames
Comments: 33
Kudos: 148





	Never Last, Never First

**Author's Note:**

> *my brain, at 2am last night, banging pots and pans* WHAT if Francis was on the _St. Vincent_ when James was a midshipman and they BONED....WHAT THEN? WHAT THEN HUH??????? 
> 
> Listen, I don’t know what to tell you. Thank you to my friends, if I still have them.

James is curled up next to him, silently weeping. His only tell is the way his shoulders shake each time he draws breath, surely from the force of trying to hide his tears and ragged exhales. 

He is still unclothed and he is still here, so perhaps Francis isn’t quite a monster. 

But then, where would James _go_? Too late for a midshipman to be out of his hammock and wandering between decks, too late for a swinging lantern to attract the attention of those James would wish to avoid. And so he shivers beside Francis, and Francis, brute that he is, hasn’t even offered him a nightshirt. 

Would that he could find the means to be kind. 

He puts a hand on James’ slender bicep and is gratified when the boy doesn’t pull away. There will be marks, on James, come morning. Fingerprints, most likely. Bruised into his wrists and the soft interior of his thighs. Not yet, or Francis would have half a mind to light a lamp and view his work, damn the eyes of anyone who might be near. 

He’s got a clearer head now, though. He can wait ‘til first light. 

“James,” he says, stroking the downy hair along his forearm. “Come now.” 

James makes no reply. 

“Aren’t you cold?” Francis tries. Lord knows he’s cold, with the sweat of his exertions cooling into goose flesh. The balmy Med air can’t help that. 

James still doesn’t answer. Can Francis blame him? After what they’ve just done. After what Francis did _to_ him.

“Mr Fitzjames,” he hisses, suddenly put upon. “Up with you.” 

James jolts upright. If there _were_ more light, Francis knows he’d see dread in his eyes. In certain tones, an officer’s voice is meant to instill it. 

“Sir?” James says, barely a whisper. He knuckles at his eyes. 

Francis pats the barrel of his own chest as one would a stool or one’s knee when summoning a child close. “Come here,” he says. 

“Were you not—“ James stops. “Sir, have I not—“ 

“Shhhh, come here.”

James moves then, gingerly. He puts one of his long, coltish legs over Francis’ middle, as though to sit astride him and Francis tsks.

“Turn,” he says, hands on James’ waist. He’s so very slight, a wisp of a thing who somehow manages to look well enough in his uniform that it goes unnoticed. Even Francis was unaware of just how small he is, how delicate. “On your belly, elbows by my knees.”

“Sir?” 

“Do as you’re told now.” Francis tries for soft, and when James awkwardly flips ‘round, lowering himself over Francis, his stomach pressed to Francis’ spent, still damp cock, his knobby elbows bracketing Francis’ knees, Francis sighs. “There’s a good lad,” he says. 

Like this, Francis has unfettered access to James’ rear. He can smell the tang of his own spend where it has spilled out and painted James’ skin. He puts his hands to James and gently spreads apart his cheeks, wishing for light again. He’d like a good look at James’ well-used hole. He can rely on different observations, though. One makes due at sea.

“Must be tender,” he addresses James. Francis kneads at him with his thumbs. “Are you?” 

“I’m—“ 

“Speak truly.” 

James sighs. He shifts upon his knees, drops his shoulders lower. It brings his lovely little arse closer to Francis. 

“I’m...I’m afraid so,” James says. “I’m terribly sorry.” 

“Let me soothe you then.” It may be the first time he’s asked permission this night. Now that his blood is down, it seems only proper. James’ arse cheeks fit perfectly in his palms. 

“If it pleases, sir,” James says, stutters more like. 

“Shuffle back some,” Francis says, and sighs again when James obeys. His socked toes are cold where they’re pressed to either side of Francis’ ribs. The boy is tall, rangy. Once he fills out more he’ll be a formidable sailor. A credit to his majesty’s navy. The sort of man whose frame won’t be rocked back by a musket kick. Stronger, and more fit than Francis Crozier by far. 

Before that time comes, Francis can have this. A very comely prize, offered mostly at will. 

James shakes when Francis puts his thumb over his hole. He feels hot there; pulsing like a tiny heart. Francis presses down just so, over the puffy heat of him, and listens for a hitch in James’ breath. When none comes, he presses harder, only enough to push inside to the cuticle. James whimpers: a lovely sound. Against his stomach, Francis can feel his prick: a good sized one, pretty and long like James himself. He’s not keen to put his mouth on other men in that way, but he had taken James in hand as a kindness, and because he wanted to feel him spill while Francis had him deep. He wanted the clench and claw of his release. 

Francis licks his lips. “Steady now,” he says, before shifting his thumb aside and replacing it with his tongue. The taste of his own seed has never bothered him; and taken like this it’s a reminder of what’s been made his. A badge of honor. He’ll have his fill, he will. He’ll gorge himself while he can, before James knows better, before he realizes there are men whose favor will _serve_ him better. 

_Look on my works_ , he thinks, and wriggles his tongue easily into James. James, who was so well-taken that he hasn’t seized up yet. A sweet thing, sweetly ruined. 

“Ah—ah. Good _Christ_.” James’ voice cracks. He moans; his hips surge back, chasing Francis. “Oh, God.” 

He wasn’t half so loud when Francis had him on his prick. 

“Bite down on your fist if you have to,” he admonishes. “Can’t have you mewling like a ship’s cat. You’ll wake the whole damn boat.” 

James laughs at that, a giggle that makes Francis feel warmed through. He’d take that tinkling bell sound over tears for anything. Francis gathers salvia in his mouth, leans back in, and lets himself drool sloppily along the crevice between James’ cheeks, slicking his already-wet crease further. He tongues at James again, his own impression of a cat, tongue pointed and then soft on James’ little hole, which slackens even more beautifully for him. 

The giggling trails off into a moan, quickly muffled. James has obeyed. That warms Francis too, more than he should rightly admit. 

He’s nearing 40, not likely to rise twice in one night, and yet Francis feels himself stirring as he administers gentle aid. Eager for another round. Eager for the most surprising thing about this boring appointment to Malta. He has never been a favorite officer, not one for war stories or shoreleave fetes, or rough-housing. That James took to him, such as this could be called that, feels misguided at best and criminal at worst, but Francis was powerless, utterly, to resist him. His dark eyes and thin lips, his charmingly awful teeth, and an accent that could bar Francis from a drawing room with just a word. 

In another lifetime, he would have been James Fitzjames’ devoted footman, hoping beyond hope that his young master wouldn’t notice when his hands shook and lingered. 

“I’d have you spend for me,” Francis rasps. His tongue feels thick in his mouth and slightly numb. James is hard again from his kisses though. He could probably finish a third time, after this, with a proper seeing to. Francis remembers being that young far too well. There was no officer fool enough, or blind enough, to want him the way he wants James. He received no tender education. “Touch yourself, lad. You know how to bring yourself off, don’t you?” 

“Won’t you—won’t you have me again?” James asks, shocking a groan out of Francis. “Haven’t I been good for you?” 

“Aye,” says Francis. He rests his forehead against James’ rump. His heart is setting a stallion’s pace in his breast. To be wanted, to be wanted thusly, after the tears, the protestations. “You have been more than good. As good as a new bride.” 

“Then?” James looks over his shoulder, tossing back his long curls. He’s biting at the interior of his cheek. It almost makes him look like he’s sneering. “Why not?” 

Francis raises an eyebrow at his indignant expression. Snorts, then stops himself from dissolving into laughter. “Jesus Christ,” Francis says with feeling. He’s made a monster. 

“What?” James demands, like the cheeky twit he is. “Sir,” he adds, as an afterthought. 

Francis knows then, with the stinging clarity of sunrise on a drunken morn, that he’s been played, and played well. ‘Tis a pity, truly, that he’s never learned how to stop himself gracefully from going after what he wants. 

“How’s this?” He says, low, and it’s all the warning James gets before Francis wets two fingers and shoves them inside, undoing all his careful soothing. “For having you?”

“ _Fuck._ ” James cries out. He hangs his head and inhales through his nose as Francis takes him roughshod with his hand. 

“You’ll touch yourself, as I said.” 

“I—“ 

“And quietly. As I also said.” 

“Yes... _sir_.”

He feels James fumble to take himself in hand. Francis angles his fingers, curls them until he finds that singular spot, and bears into it. Rubs at James from the inside out and feels his walls tighten then release, in rhythm with the hand on his prick. A very, very quick study. If the learning is new at all. If the gasping, sobbing midshipman Francis had bent over his berth mere hours ago was even the truest version of the boy he’s taking apart now, far less carefully, because James’ evolution has been swift. 

“There,” James says, “oh _there_. There, please.” It’s mumbled and wet and Francis gives it to him as he wishes. Draws his fingers apart to make the muscles stretch and accommodate his tongue, just as he’d managed to shove his hard prick into this warm and helpless place. James’ movements become frantic, his wrist brushing against Francis’ thigh as he strips himself, and Francis tries to match him in his relentless self-abuse. 

Francis feels the rigor the precedes release grip James before he reaches his crisis. James’ thighs tense, his hole tightens like a vise at Francis’ fingers. Francis pulls his tongue back into the safety of his mouth, shifts his fingers against the pressure and strokes James through it, doesn’t release him from their hook until James bats at his forearm, and collapses down onto his belly. His essence is splattered across Francis thighs. His torso is freckled and glistening, the curls at the back of his neck are sweat-damp, coiled like Medusa’s snakes along his nape. 

Sweet Jesus, but Francis could devour him. He could, he could. 

He cannot. This has been a first and a last for them; he sees that now. He wipes the back of his hand over his swollen mouth and wonders whom, exactly, has been taken here. 

James rolls off of him after a moment and then clambers from the berth. It is possible the sun is coming up. It is possible Francis can hear the birds. James gropes around for his clothes, dresses himself without looking back at the man whose bed he just made into a whore’s nest. 

Francis draws the topsheet over his body, his fish belly legs, his round stomach. He closes his eyes and James clears his throat. 

“Sir?” 

He shouldn’t, but— “It’s Francis, if you please.” 

James is tying back his hair; it’s no longer the fashion but a boy like him can get away with anything. 

“ _Francis_ , then.” James gives him a soft, knowing look.

Francis has seen that expression before: in drawing rooms, unchaperoned; and beside a babbling crick, behind the house where they once summered when he was a boy not much younger than James. A local girl had spent a day in his company before shooing him away like the visiting city mongrel he was. 

“What is it?” He asks, and knows that spite has chased all the sweetness from his tongue. 

James shrugs. “It’s four bells. I’d best be—“ 

“Yes.” Francis sits up straighter. 

“Francis, will you.” James hesitates. His fingers fiddle with his cravat. Long, elegant. A gentleman’s fingers. “I’m—“

“Go, Mr Fitzjames. Before your fellows wake and think to miss you.” 

“Sir.” James nods. He opens the door between Francis’ berth and the world, peeks from side to side, and then he’s gone. Francis is alone. 

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this, [kindly consider sharing with pals](https://reserve.tumblr.com/post/618030217765814272/never-last-never-first-reserve-the-terror-tv) and reblog!


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